By Abayomi Azikiwe
For several weeks officials from the United States administration of President Joe Biden have led the international community to believe once again that an end to the fighting in Gaza was imminent.
Nonetheless, as in recent months, movement towards ending the occupation of Gaza and the efforts to secure a permanent cessation of hostilities remain elusive.
The reality is that the Biden administration is still sending weapons and bombs to Tel Aviv which are being utilized to inflict terror upon the Palestinian people on a daily basis. During a press conference held in the aftermath of the NATO Summit in Washington, D.C., Biden emphasized that the administration has not wavered in its support of the State of Israel.
His slight references to a ceasefire and the need for a two-state solution was no different than the same rhetoric enunciated by successive administrations, both Democrat and Republican, for decades. Biden said that the war must end while never citing the 76-year occupation, ethnic cleansing and genocide as the underlying causes of the ongoing crisis.
Official statistics from the Health Ministry in Gaza indicate that more than 38,000 Palestinians have been killed and approximately 88,000 wounded after nine months of the most recent genocidal onslaught beginning after October 7. The entire length and breath of the Gaza Strip is filled with displaced persons.
Several examples of recent massacres provide a clear assessment of the devastating impact of U.S. foreign policy which props-up the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) in Gaza. The almost daily evacuation orders given by the Israeli military reinforces the overall insecurity of the Palestinians.
Reuters reported on the current situation in an article published on July 9 noting:
“Palestinian officials said an Israeli airstrike in southern Gaza Strip killed more than two dozen people while advancing tanks in Gaza City forced residents to flee under fire as Israel on Tuesday stepped up an offensive that Hamas warned could jeopardize ceasefire talks. The airstrike hit the tents of displaced families outside a school in the town of Abassan east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, killing at least 29, most of them were women and children, Palestinian medical officials said. The Israeli military said it was reviewing reports that civilians were harmed. It said the incident occurred when it struck with ‘precise munition’ a Hamas fighter who took part in the Oct. 7 raid on Israel that precipitated the Israeli assault on Gaza. Ismail Al-Thawabta, director of the Hamas-run Gaza government media office, said Israeli strikes on central Gaza areas killed 60 Palestinians and wounded dozens of others on Tuesday.”
These incidents illustrate the complicity of U.S. imperialism and its allies in the genocide against the Palestinians. Ordinances made in the U.S. and transferred by the administration are essential to maintaining the status-quo.
A systematic campaign of bombings and shelling of residential areas all across Gaza has been condemned as war crimes. In addition to the efforts to drive the Palestinians out of Gaza by destroying houses, apartment buildings, encampments, hospitals, schools, universities, religious institutions, marketplaces, infrastructure and social service agencies, the Israeli military units have blocked the shipments of food, fuel, medical supplies and freshwater.
A ridiculous announcement made by the Biden administration months ago saying it would build a temporary pier in the Mediterranean to facilitate the shipment of humanitarian assistance to those suffering in Gaza has been exposed as just another ploy in its efforts to reinforce the settler-colonial project in Palestine. Finally admitting the scheme had collapsed even before it started, Biden has further illustrated his deceitful enunciations which pretend to express concern for the oppressed while carrying on with its imperialist policies.
The same above-mentioned Reuters report points to the widespread attacks throughout Gaza emphasizing:
“Ismail Al-Thawabta, director of the Hamas-run Gaza government media office, said Israeli strikes on central Gaza areas killed 60 Palestinians and wounded dozens of others on Tuesday. Residents said Israeli tanks that pushed into the Tel Al-Hawa, Shejaia and Sabra neighborhoods of Gaza City shelled roads and buildings, forcing them to flee their homes. This was followed by Israeli military orders to evacuate several districts in eastern and western Gaza City posted on social media, which included these neighborhoods. ‘We hold the occupation and the U.S. administration responsible for the horrifying massacres against civilians,’ said Thawabta in a statement. The Palestinian Red Crescent said early on Wednesday on Facebook that its crews received dozens of humanitarian distress calls from Gaza City but were unable to help due to the intensity of the bombing there. On Gaza City’s front lines, the armed wings of Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad said their fighters battled Israeli forces with machine guns, mortar fire and anti-tank missiles and killed and wounded Israeli soldiers.”
The reality of the situation on the ground in Gaza makes a mockery of the purported diplomatic efforts in the West Asian and North African region. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been traveling throughout the region for nine months, yet the genocidal program aimed at the Palestinians remains the order of the day.
In fact, the resistance against the occupation of Gaza has escalated over the recent period. Not only are the armed Palestinian brigades stepping up their attacks on the IOF, the war has intensified with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon carrying out military operations against Tel Aviv.
Imperialist Diplomacy and Regional Hegemony
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on July 11 that Tel Aviv would send a representative to talks in Doha, Qatar which have so far failed to reach any satisfactory agreement on achieving a ceasefire. Hamas, the leading Palestinian resistance organization in Gaza, has demonstrated flexibility in the negotiations for an end to the fighting.
However, it has been quite obvious over the last nine months that the State of Israel and the U.S. does not want a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. An end to the fighting with the resistance forces intact would place further political pressure on the imperialists and the Zionist regime to contemplate a general political solution to the Palestinian question.
Another formidable resistance movement, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), said recently in an interview with Al Mayadeen television that the negotiations have not made any headway in ending the recent phase of the war. PIJ and its military wing, the Al-Quds Brigade, have fought alongside Al-Qassam, the armed forces of Hamas, over the last nine months.
The Al Mayadeen interview emphasized:
“The latest round of mediated negotiations between the Palestinian Resistance and the Israeli occupation did not lead to any results, the Deputy Secretary-General of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), Mohammad al-Hindi, told Al Mayadeen. Al-Hindi explained that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government’s priority is unrelated to retrieving Israeli captives in the Gaza Strip, but instead, it is to carry on the war on the besieged territory. ‘The Israeli negotiator is stalling, as he told the mediators that he would return to Tel Aviv, and then he would give them a response regarding what was proposed (in the meetings),’ al-Hindi explained. Pointing to the crucial opportunity to finalize a deal that recently presented itself to the Israeli government, the PIJ official said that Israeli authorities encroached on a dangerous escalation when they demanded that all residents of Gaza City leave their residences and head southwards.”
The resistance to the Zionist state and its imperialist allies poses a serious challenge to the efforts by Washington and Wall Street to maintain their hegemony over the entire region. In Yemen, the Ansar Allah movement has intervened in the siege on Gaza by utilizing its naval forces to impose a blockade from the Red Sea. Other resistance organizations in Iraq and Syria have been utilizing their military capabilities to strike blows against the occupation forces in Palestine.
In response, the White House has ordered a series of airstrikes by the Pentagon against Yemen. Ansar Allah leader Sayeed Abdul-Malik al-Houthi noted in a recent interview with Al Mayadeen that the examples set by the resistance forces in the region from Palestine and Lebanon to Syria, Iraq and Iran has influenced the solidarity movement in the U.S. where students took center-stage during the spring by demanding the full disclosure and divestment of all economic interests which are enabling the genocide against the oppressed peoples living under occupation.
The NATO Summit reconfirmed the imperialist commitment to continue the war in Ukraine, the attempts to contain China and the genocide in Gaza. Consequently, it will take the global solidarity movement working in conjunction with the regional resistance forces and all anti-imperialists and anti-war groupings to create the conditions for the total liberation of oppressed peoples throughout the world.
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